through all the perplexed and intermittent wars of thirty years,
he was bound by the indissoluble tie of the feudal relation, which
remained the dominant and authoritative fact of the political morality of
that day. For twenty years to come the two kings, both of them hampered
by overwhelming difficulties, strove to avoid war each after his own
fashion: Henry by money lavishly spent, and by wary diplomacy; Louis
more economically by a restless cunning, by incessant watching of his
adversary's weak points, by dexterously using the arms of Henry's
rebellious subjects rather than those of Frenchmen.

Henry's first care was to secure his ill-defined and ill-defended
frontier, and to recover those border fortresses which had been wrested
from Geoffrey by his enemies. In Normandy the Vexin, which was the true
military frontier between him and France, and commanded the road to
Paris, had been lost. In Anjou he had to win back the castles which had
fallen to the House of Blois. His brother Geoffrey, Earl of Nantes, was
dead, and he must secure his own succession to the earldom. Two rival
claimants were disputing the lordship of Britanny, but Britanny must at
all costs be brought into obedience to Henry. There were hostile forces
in Angoumois, La Marche, Saintonge, and the Limousin, which had to be
finally destroyed. And besides all this, it was necessary to enforce
Eleanor's rights over Berri, and her disputed claims to supremacy over
Toulouse and Auvergne. Every one of these projects was at once taken in
hand. Henry's chancellor, Thomas Becket, was sent from England in 1158
at the head of a splendid embassy to the French court, and when Henry
landed in France the success of this mission was declared. A marriage
was arranged between his little son Henry, now three years old, and
Louis' daughter Margaret, aged six months; and the Vexin was to be
restored to Normandy as Margaret's dowry. The English king obtained from
Louis the right to judge as lord of Anjou and seneschal of France
between the claimants to Britanny; his first entry into that province
was with full authority as the officer of France, and the whole army of
Normandy was summoned to Avranches to enforce his judgment. Conan was
made Duke of Britanny under Henry's lordship, and Nantes was given up
into his hands. He secured by treaty with the House of Blois the
fortresses which had fallen into their hands, and before the year was
out he thus saw his inheritance in Anj